Illegal Immigration Essay

1544 words - 6 pages

Illegal immigration has been a source of mounting concern in the United States since the 1970’s. Statistics indicate that the past ten years have witnessed an increase in the number of illegal immigrants with the number estimated to increase in the future. “The percentage of illegal immigrant population from Mexico was 59% (or 6.8 million) as of January 2013. Other countries with large amounts are El Salvador (660,000) Guatemala (52000), Hondorous (380,000) and China (280,000)” (Infoplease 1). The rising number of illegal immigrants over the past ten years has led to an increasing concern about the effects of illegal immigrants on wages, national security, and public finances. Evidently, illegal immigration has been a source of economic stress, increased insecurity, low healthcare services, and reduced education standards. To delve deep in understanding the negative impact of illegal immigration, this paper critically explores how unauthorized immigration negatively impacts various social economic aspects.
A plethora of studies show that illegal immigrants take away jobs from United States natives (Corsi 109). Arguably, this is because of their willingness to work for very low wages including those below the minimum wage. “Currently illegal immigrants are mostly doing jobs Americans do not want to do” (Desai 431). Despite a lack of legal documents, illegal immigrants have continued to work in public school systems, stable jobs, construction, fast food industry, hotel industry and restaurants (Corsi 108). The influx in the number of illegal immigrants has not only increased competition in the job market but also created low paying jobs. Furthermore, the jobs would pay more and in return become more attractive if illegal immigrants would decline low wages.
Many of the illegal immigrants have a criminal history in America. They have no documents to show their background since they enter illegally. “In our study of 55322 illegal aliens, we found that they were arrested at least a total of 459614 times, averaging about 8 arrest per illegal alien. All had more than one arrest” (Martin 2). Many of the immigrants associate themselves with illegal activities, including gang-related crimes. For instance, the existence of a street gang in Southern California consisting of 60% aliens of an 18th Street gang’s membership is a common source proof to this point (Ankarlo 215). The illegal immigrants join the gangs because of the support they get within it and in return, they cause violence. Further study shows that California State prison inmate population comprises of nearly 15% illegal aliens (Ankarlo 220).
Terrorism coming across borders increases tension in many states since it signifies threats. This tension causes pressure to the federal government and as a result exhausts government funds in an attempt to execute plans to identify these terrorist threats. A study shows that there has been more anxiety for terrorists near the border illegally and a hundred...

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